Oh my goodness what a 2 weeks!! The spring term has wrapped up and now everyone (or almost everyone) has gone home for the month of April for Easter break. I'll be hanging out around Nottingham for the week working on course work so I won't have to do it when I get back. I'm very lucky to be staying with a wonderful couple called the Pawleys while I'm staying in Nottingham! SO NICE TO BE IN A HOME! Alright, now to describe my past 2 weekends :)
Oxford
This was one location that I knew before I arrived in England that I would be coming to! I was very excited to find out that the travel society at UoN was making a day trip so I signed up with my friend Laura (a Canadian exchange student who lives on my corridor and who I will be traveling with for the month of April!) We woke up super early and caught a bus to the historic city! We could not have had better weather! It was absolutely beautiful!! The way that we decided to explore Oxford was basically just to wander in the general direction of locations we knew we wanted to see. The architecture was absolutely incredible.
Our first actual stop was to the Oxford Botanic Gardens. The garden wasn't huge, but it was really pretty. We just walked around and enjoyed the beautiful day and went into the green house and saw super cool flowers.
After the garden we just continued exploring the different churches and pretty areas of Oxford. I need to be better about writing my blog sooner because I can't remember all of the specific names of the places that I went, but I have pictures!!!
After we went to Oxford, we made a stop at the Bicester Village, which is basically just a really nice outlet mall. To anyone that doesn't know, I'm not a big shopper.....alright that is an understatement. I'm a destination shopper. I know what I want, I go get it, and then I move on with my life. I've been a lot of fun for my girlfriends over the years that want to go shopping hahahaha. Luckily, neither is Laura so we just went and got some yummy food and rested while everyone went shopping!
Such a fun day!!
NEXT
Budapest!
There is soooooooo much to say!
Alright we are gonna break this up into days
Day 1: I left Nottingham Thursday morning for London to celebrate the amazingly wonderful Shelby Hintz's 21st birthday!!! It was such a great, relaxing day. We just enjoyed London and ran some quick errands before going out to dinner at the Breakfast Club. After dinner we went and got fro-yo at a place called Snog, then got a birthday drink at a bar called Lexington. We wanted to make it an early night because Shelby and I had a looooooong night ahead of us.
Day 1 1/2: This part of the trip happens in the middle of the night, so even though its a new day, it doesn't count!! We had to leave Shelby's flat at 3:30AM to catch a night bus, to catch an airport shuttle, to catch a flight. One of the highlights of this experience was hands down the airport shuttle called the easybus. We caught the bus at 4:20, so one would think that the driver would want to keep things quiet because the journey to the airport is about 1:15 hours. Oh no. Not our bus driver. We were about to leave so he turned the lights off in the bus. Next thing we knew, there were blue lights lining the floor and the ceiling and he turned on the radio to like top 40 hits. Basically, our easybus was converted into a party bus and it was hysterical! Can't lie, it made the experience very entertaining. haha
Day 2: We took a flight that lasted about 2:20 hours. I wanted to sleep so badly, but 1)I'm not a big flyer so I have trouble sleeping on flights and 2)There was a bachelor party that was just super duper excited about their trip to Budapest and wanted everyone to know hahaha. They were all wearing reindeer antlers and many were wearing sun glasses. All of them were walking around the plane, chatting people up, drinking beer and vodka (at 9:00AM.............), and got the pilot to make a special shout out to the groom. Hahahaha me and sleeping didn't stand a chance.
We had a driver from our hostel meet us at the airport.....super cool seeing Shelby's name on one of those pick up signs! haha. Its the small things in life :) We drove to our hostel which was really more of a flat. It had a kitchen, bathroom, living room, and Shelby and I had our own room. We quickly dropped our things off, got cleaned up, and went out to explore!!
Literally right next to our hostel was the St. Stephen's Basilica. Even from the outside you could tell how incredible this building was. You can see it from basically anywhere in the city, which was great because we always knew how to get home. We hadn't really eaten in a while, so we stopped to get some lunch at an Italian restaurant right next to the Basilica. This was the first time that we had to interact with local Hungarians and learn the currency, Forint. Both were very interesting. Most Hungarians do not speak a lot of English, just basic yes and no responses. There was a lot of pointing when trying to communicate. The currency was also slightly intimidating. When we first exchanged the money we were kinda freaking out because I know that I have knew held a bill with that many zeros. Basically 5 Pounds equals about 1000 Forint (at least that was my basic conversion based on the prices of a cup of coffee at Starbucks ha). That meant that it was not unusual to have a 5000 Forint bill for something. Definitely had to get used to that.
After lunch we decided we would walk down to the Danube River that divides Buda and Pest. In case you didn't know (I didn't) Buda and Pest are 2 different cities. Yes, Jessica Bernacchi , they actually are 2 different cities :) I had no idea how beautiful Budapest was!! We walked down to the river and it honestly just takes your breath away. Some of the first things that you will probably see are the Chain Bridge, the National Gallery, and Matthias Church. The river was gorgeous and pretty big. We crossed over the bridge and saw the Hungarian Parliament for the first time. I believe it is the second largest Parliament building in Europe, behind England. It was incredible! So detailed and striking! When we crossed the bridge to Buda, we took a cable car up this really big hill to get a better view of Pest. Seriously incredible! You could see Parliament, the Chain Bride, and St. Stephen's. We walked around Buda for the rest of the day. We saw the Buda Castle, Matthias Church, the hills of Buda, random guys practicing with the cross bows (for real), Fisherman's Bastion, Holy Trinity Square, and Castle Hill. We stopped near Fisherman's Bastion and got a yummy afternoon snack and looked out over the river at Parliament. The entire trip we had to keep pinching ourselves.
After exploring Buda we went back to the hostel just to get cleaned up and rest for a little bit......which turned into both of us falling asleep for several hours hahaha. At 10:00PM we woke up and decided some food may be good. This started a running joke for the weekend that we were looking a Burger King, which we found, but was closed. Luckily we found a place to get a sandwich and went back to the hostel and slept some more haha.
REALLY AMAZING FIRST DAY!
Day 3: Today we decided to explore Pest, where our hostel was. We started by heading down to the Market to get some breakfast. It was much more legit than we thought it would be, meaning it was VERY Hungarian. We had no idea what anything said, what people were saying to us, or what a lot of the food was. Luckily we found a place that made amazing crepes so breakfast was a success! After the market we walked down the river to get a good look at Parliament. It was incredible! We would have taken a tour of the inside, but we heard it was only in Hungarian that day......weird. It really was massive and the detail of the building was insane. From Parliament we went down Andrassy Street which is meant to be one of the best shopping areas of Budapest. It was definitely a classy place with lots of designers. On Andrassy Street was the House of Terror which is an interesting but devastating museum about the Soviet and Nazi interference within Hungary. It was very sad, but definitely worth going through to learn more about the history of the country. After the House of Terror we walked past the Budapest Opera House (gorgeous) and made our way to St. Stephen's Basilica. We knew that we wanted to go inside and it cost 200 Forint each. We had a very funny interaction with the man at the door. He worked for the church and didn't speak a word of English. Shelby and I went in to pay our 200 Forint and grabs my hands and wouldn't let me pay and basically (we think) signaled that we only had to pay 100 Forint each because he liked us????? who knows hahaha. Either way we only had to pay 100 each (approximately 25 pence each and I have no idea what that converts to in dollars. Sorry, I'm a Sociology major. haha) The Basilica was incredible! I have never seen anything like it in my life. The detail in very aspect of the church was insane. BEAUTIFUL! Words really can't describe it and pictures don't do it justice! After working our way through the Basilica we went and saw the Great Synagogue then went back to the hostel to get cleaned up and rest. We made a point this time NOT to fall asleep!! We wanted to have a real Hungarian dinner so we went to this place called Regos Vendeglo es Falatozo and it was delicious!!!! We had Goulash, Paprika Chicken, and Strudel! Our waiter thought we were ridiculous too. He was very nice, but again spoke very little English. We couldn't help but just laugh our way through all of our interactions with him. We went back to the hostel and planned the next days activities and went to bed!
Day 4: Last day in Budapest :(
We had planned to go to the bath house that Budapest is known for, but after some research we decided that it would be really cool, but maybe in different circumstances. I would have liked to see the bath house without actually having to pay to go in. It was a little bit expensive, kinda far away, and we heard mixed reviews about the service, so we decided to basically coffee house hop all day! That kinda just turned into more exploring of Pest but it was great! We walked all the way down Andrassy to a beautiful park that had a castle that I swear they used to design the one in Beauty and the Beast! I was freaking out a little bit!!! We then went to a dessert place that is supposedly famous for their dishes.....and I believe it! So good!! Finally we had to wrap up our day and catch our car back to the airport.
I feel like Budapest was exactly as I imagined a European adventure would be like. It was beautiful, very different from anything I have ever seen, and a giant exploration. It was so much fun and I'm so glad that I got to go on such a great trip with Shelby! We may be in the same country, but its like when someone goes to CofC and USC....you're close but not close enough!!
In 6 days the big adventure will begin! I leave for London with Laura for 3 days then we are off to Paris, the Swiss Alps, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Venice, the Rhine Valley, Amsterdam, and Bruges. STAY TUNED!!!!
Oxford Pictures!
Budapest Pictures!!
SO GREAT!
Incredible!! My mind is blown right now at all the cool stuff y'all saw and did! So much funnnn!
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